
MOSTLYABOUT 

NIBBLE the bunny 


JOHN BRECK 






















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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 












MOSTLY ABOUT 
NIBBLE THE BUNNY 


^olb at TOotltgfjt stories 

By JOHN BRECK 


MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY 

NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS 

THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX 

THE COON’S TRICKS 

THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR 

TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE 

THE BAD LITTLE OWLS 

THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME 





Bobby and Glider were making such a 
racket that every one was coming to listen 
to them 









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Cheer up, Bunny,” chirped Bobby Robin 




®olt> at GDtoiligtjt Stories 


Mostly About 
Nibble the Bunny 

by 

John Breck 



Illustrated by 
William T. Andrews 


Garden City New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 
1923 








COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 


- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 


THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y« 


First Edition 



NOV On iqoo 



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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Very Small Bunny Has a Very 

Big Adventure.1 

II. Nibble Rabbit Learns His Fortune 18 

III. Nibble Rabbit to the Rescue! . 30 


IV. What Happens When Folks Lose 

Their Tempers.43 

V. Nibble Rabbit ’s Storm Party . . 58 

VI. The Little Bunny Meets the Lit¬ 
tle Boy.. . 76 

VII. Why the Cow Got Her Horns . 91 

VIII. Nibble Fools Ouphe in His Own 

Haystack .105 

IX. Nibble Digs into Trouble—and 

Slips Out ..114 







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Cheer up, Bunny,” chirped Bobby 
Robin. Frontispiece 

FACING 

PAGE 

Bobby and Glider were making such 
a racket that every one was com¬ 
ing to listen to them . . . .10 

Dr. Muskrat pulls Nibble out of the 
broad pond.26 

Nibble digs Bob White’s mother out 
of the bank.34 

Nibble darted into the first shack he 
came to.42 

Silvertip pricked up his ears . . 74 

Nibble hid behind a fence post . . 82 

Tommy held Nibble up by his long 
ears 


106 







MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 
THE BUNNY 

CHAPTER I 

A VERY SMALL BUNNY HAS A VERY BIG 
ADVENTURE 

T HE air was blowing in at the 
mouth of his hole when Little 
Nibble Rabbit opened his eyes. 
That meant a cold south wind outside, 
a rainy wind. He could see the wet 
drops hanging from the top of his 
arched earth doorway. They would wet 
his back when he tried to go out and 
that wouldn’t be nice. He shivered 
and closed his eyes again. Then he 
huddled up tighter than ever into a 
little furry brown ball. Still he was 
cold, so he tried to cuddle into the very 
1 


2 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

farthest corner where his mother al¬ 
ways slept. It was empty! 

That woke him np. “Mammy,” he 
called softly; “Mammy.” No answer. 
He put his nose to the earth and found 
it still warm. She could not have been 
gone very long. So he crawled to the 
mouth of the hole and thumped with 
his little hind feet, making all the noise 
he dared. Then he sat up and cocked 
his ears for her answering thump. He 
half expected a glimpse of her white 
tail bobbing down one of the tunnels 
through the Prickly Ash Thicket. But 
no mother was there. 

“She can’t go off and leave me like 
this,” he said to himself, and he put 
down his nose to find her trail. It was 
all washed out by the rain. Thump, 
thump! he went again—and they were 
cross thumps because he was so terribly 
disappointed. Then he suddenly sat 
down on his little tufty tail and wailed 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 3 

“Mammy, mammy, mammy!” at the 
top of his voice. 

‘ 6 Cheer up, Bunny. What ’s wrong , 9 9 
chirped some one from a branch just 
over his head. It was Bobby Robin, 
and he was peering down with the most 
puzzled and astonished look in his black 
eye. 

“I’m Nibble,” sobbed the little rabbit, 
“and I’ve lost my mother.” 

“Well, Nibble,” warned Bobby in his 
sensible way, “if she doesn’t come back 
pretty soon she’ll lose her son. Don’t 
you know better than to tell Killer 
Weasel and Silvertip the Fox, and 
Hooter the Owl, and any one else who 
wants to know where they’ll find a nice 
young rabbit for breakfast.” 

But the tears ran faster than ever 
down Nibble’s whiskers. “ It’s Hooter, ’ 9 
he sniffed. “He caught her when 
she went down to the brook for a drink. 
I know he did. She’d never leave me. ’ ’ 


4 


MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 


“Nonsense,” said Bobby, and he said 
it peckishly, for no one likes to hear a 
little rabbit cry. ‘ ‘ I know your mother, 
and she knows the law of the woods. 
You can fly—run, I mean—can’t you. 
And feed yourself?” 

“Yes,” answered Nibble, for his 
brothers and sisters had gone to dig 
their own holes and find their own food 
weeks ago. 

“Well, then,” finished Bobby, nod¬ 
ding wisely to himself, “if there’s any 
fresh rabbit fur under Hooter’s tree 
it’s not your mother’s.” 

To his surprise Nibble stopped 
squeezing the tears from his eyes and 
opened them wide. “I’m going to 
look!” he announced. And he began 
to scrub his face and polish off his ears 
with his little soft forepaws. 

“Going to look where?” asked Bobby 
Robin. 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 5 

“Oh, lots of places—the Clover 
Patch, and the Brush Pile, and the 
Broad Field. But first I’m going to 
see if there’s any fur under Hooter’s 
tree.” 

“What?” squawked Bobby. He 
came tumbling down to the ground 
where he could make Nibble look him 
straight in the eye and listen to an 
awful lecture. 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he 
said. “Now that you have to see and 
hear and smell and feel for yourself 
you will have to be twice as careful as 
you ever were before. You may re¬ 
member all the things your mother 
taught you—now you’ll have to do 
them. And she took all that trouble 
with you so you could be a sensible, 
clever rabbit and keep out of danger, 
not so you’d run right off the minute 
she left you and offer Hooter a free 


6 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

meal.” Bobby was so worried about 
Nibble be forgot that the ground was 
no place for a sensible bird. 

“But I must know if Hooter caught 
her,” pleaded Nibble, “and I will be 
careful.” He sat up and sniffed all 
around with his nice clean nose that 
had been all swollen from crying when 
Bobby Robin found him. And he 
pricked up his tidy ears, just to show 
how careful he meant to be. And he 
heard a soft little noise behind him. 
It wasn’t two grass stalks rubbing to¬ 
gether, though it was as tiny as that. 
It was the scraping Glider the Black- 
snake makes when he slips across a 
stone! 

Nibble’s feet just bounced of them¬ 
selves, and Bobby’s wings beat, and 
Glider’s ugly head landed right be¬ 
tween them. For Glider hears every¬ 
thing that goes on along the ground. 
He had heard Nibble stamping to call 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 


7 


his mother. If Mammy Rabbit had 
answered Glider would never have 
come. But she didn’t—so Glider did. 
And now lonely little Nibble Rabbit was 
racing off and Glider was after him, 
simply boiling over with rage, as fast 
as he could put tail to the ground. He 
didn’t think Nibble could run so very 
far. He was sure he would catch him. 

For a minute Nibble thought so too. 
Scared t Nibble Rabbit was too scared 
to think. He just ran. Every jump 
he made was longer and higher than the 
one before until he was sailing over 
the tops of the tallest grasses. My, but 
he wanted his mammy—that was be¬ 
cause he was so dreadfully scared. 
Then he wanted a place to hide. Pres¬ 
ently he remembered the Brush Pile. 
He turned toward it and he didn’t even 
hide his trail the way he had been 
taught—that’s how scared he was. 

But just as he reached it he remem- 


8 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

bered something his mother had told 
him, which was just what she hoped he 
would do. “If the thing that chases 
you wears feathers take to a hole. If 
it wears fur don’t put your nose into 
any hole that hasn’t another end. If 
it wears scales keep to the open and run 
as fast and as far as you can.” And 
scales are exactly what Glider wears. 

Now he knew exactly what to do, and 
he wasn’t quite as scared. He just 
bounced up on the Brush Pile and kept 
on going until he bounced off again on 
the other side. He raced through the 
Clover Patch and down the Broad 
Field between the shocks of corn. The 
field was all muddy from the rain and 
his feet slipped and slid and his little 
heart went bump, bump, against his 
sides, as though some one were hitting 
him. He wasn’t even frightened any 
more—he was too tired. But he kept 
on. 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 


9 


Then he heard a voice calling him: 
“Nibble, Nibble, wait!” It was no 
hissy voice of a snake. It was Bobby 
Robin. 

So be turned into one of the nice 
little tents made by the shocks of corn. 
And Bobby bad to catch bis breath be¬ 
fore be could talk. “You’re safe,” be 
gasped. “You lost Glider way back 
there. I asked you if you could fly. 
You can. You fly faster than a 
thistledown in a north wind.” And 
Nibble twitched bis nose into a pleased 
smile, while Bobby stopped to fan him¬ 
self with bis wings. “Glider couldn’t 
see you bounce oft on the other side of 
the Brush Pile,” he explained when he 
got his breath, “because his head is 
so near the ground.” 

Nibble’s ears flew up in surprise. 
“Couldn’t he smell me?” he asked. 
If he couldn’t, then here indeed was 
a new thing he had learned. 


10 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

Bobby cocked bis bead sidewise with 
a most mischievous air. 6 6 He could fol¬ 
low you to tbe edge of tbe Clover 
Patch. But be lost you tbe minute you 
went out into tbe Broad Field. Look 
at your feet, Nibble. You didn’t leave 
any scent after you got your little mud 
boots.” 

Nibble held up one forepaw and 
looked at it. Then be put out a bind 
one and looked at that, too. Sure 
enough tbe sticky mud of the Broad 
Field bad matted into bis fur so that 
be was wearing a fine little set of boots 
that came half way to bis knees. He 
looked down tbe row of slippy, slidy 
tracks be bad made. “There’s where 
I got them,” be said. “I should think 
Glider would see where I’d gone.” 

“Glider!” laughed Bobby scornfully. 
“Why, Glider’s too blind and stupid to 
see anything. He’s nosing around on 
the Brush Pile right this minute, look- 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 11 

ing for the hole you didn’t run into. 
And the little sticks tickle his stomach, 
and he’s getting hungrier and hungrier 
and crosser and crosser until—oh, I 
say, Nibble, I’ve just got to go back 
and see the fun. Come along! ’ ’ Bobby 
giggled a throatful of chuckling notes 
and flitted off, winking his tailfeathers 
to beckon Nibble. 

But it didn’t seem like fun to Nibble. 
He was still so weak and shaky after 
his run that he trembled every time 
Bobby spoke Glider’s name. What he 
wanted was to find his mother—or at 
least to know that she wasn’t a little 
matted ball of fur under Hooter the 
Owl’s tree. “I’d go and look right 
now,” he said to himself, “if I didn’t 
have to pass that Brush Pile.” 

Suddenly he knew that now was his 
chance, while he still had his little mud 
boots on. Softly he crept through the 
Clover Patch for fear Glider might be 


12 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

lurking in the long grass, ready to 
pounce on him. But long before he 
reached the Brush Pile itself he knew 
exactly where the wicked snake was. 
He was right on top of it. 

He was right on top of it, and what 
is more, Bobby Eobin was circling 
about his ugly head to jeer at him. 
“Yah!” Bobby was shouting, “Heap 
big hunter, beaten by a bunny! Better 
go catch frogs in a marsh!” 

Now Nibble knew that was a most in¬ 
sulting thing to say. For a frog is so 
stupid that almost anything can catch 
him—especially a snake. If a frog can 
possibly dive he hides under a lily- 
pad. If he can’t he just squawks 
and waits to be eaten, like a helpless 
baby bird. 

Bobby was squawking loudly enough, 
only he wasn’t waiting to be eaten. He 
was taking very good care not to be. 
But he was coming so close to it that 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 13 

Nibble almost forgot everything else in 
watching him. There was one thing he 
did remember, though, and that was 
that the wicked snake had nearly 
caught him by sneaking up from be¬ 
hind. So he took proper rabbit care 
that no one should do that again. He 
found a nice log where he could see 
what was going on, but he didn’t hop 
straight up on it. He took three short 
little leaps past it, and one great big 
bound back to his perch. Since he still 
had on his little mud boots which had 
hidden his trail from Glider out in the 
Broad Field, he felt pretty safe. And 
when he crouched down like a small 
brown knot on the log no one seemed to 
notice him. 

Somebody might have noticed easily 
enough for Bobby and Glider were mak¬ 
ing such a terrible racket that every 
one was coming to listen to them. The 
grasses were full of mice and the bushes 


14 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

were full of sparrows who all hated 
the snake. Even Chatter Squirrel, 
who doesn’t get on with Bobby any too 
well himself, came leaping across his 
pathway among the branches. 

“Snail eater, snail eater!” yelled 
Bobby. Which was the awfullest thing 
he could have thought of. To accuse a 
blacksnake of eating those disgusting 
soft woodslugs—ugh! What he eats is 
nice warm food, like mice and bunnies 
and birds—if he can catch them. But 
he couldn’t catch Bobby Robin as he 
danced on his wings just out of reach. 
He missed a particularly ugly snap and 
slapped his nose very hard when it 
came down on a nubbly branch. That 
made him open his mouth and hiss like 
a small steam engine. 

“That’s right,” said Bobby, pretend¬ 
ing to be very sympathetic. “Spit the 
mud out of your mouth and maybe 
you’ll learn to sing.” 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 15 

Chatter Squirrel laughed so hard 
at this that he had to hold on tight to 
a piece of bark to steady himself. And 
Nibble sat straight up with his muddy 
little paws dangling right against his 
clean shirt front and stared with all his 
eyes. He had his ear cocked so he 
wouldn’t miss a word of Glider’s an¬ 
swer. For now Glider was maddest of 
all. No snake can stand being re¬ 
minded that he has to go around with 
his chin in the dust. 

He stopped whipping his head about 
and tied himself into a tight coil, with 
his cold eyes glittering from the very 
middle of it. And he hissed in his cold 
voice: “I’ll teach you Woodsfolk 
whether you dare make fun of me!” 

“Oh,” whispered a thrush perched 
right over Nibble’s head, “I’m afraid 
for Bobby. If Glider ever makes any 
one look him straight in the eye they 
never get away from him.” He said 


16 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

it in a scared voice and Nibble could 
see that was exactly what Glider was 
trying to do. 

Suddenly he felt himself crouch back 
against the log again, ears tucked be¬ 
tween his shoulders, whiskers twitch¬ 
ing with the smell of fox in his nostrils. 
His muscles did these things of them¬ 
selves before he really knew that Sil- 
vertip was standing at his very elbow. 
He had followed Nibble’s footsteps to 
the end of the trail right past the perch 
to where Nibble had jumped back. 

Nibble didn’t move. Silvertip raised 
his head and cocked his ears at the 
noise over on the Brush Pile. Then 
he hung out his tongue in what wasn’t 
entirely a sly smile. It was partly 
thinking how good Glider the Black- 
snake would taste. He made a little 
rush, with a bounce at the end, like 
Nibble’s bounce, right into the middle 
of the Brush Pile. 


A VERY BIG ADVENTURE 17 

“Help!” shrieked Bobby Bobin. 
But Glider never spoke a single word. 
Neither did Silvertip. His mouth was 
too full. Glider was in it. 


CHAPTER II 


NIBBLE RABBIT LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 

OT one of the Woodsfolk could 
make a sound. It was all so 
sudden it took their breath 
away. Then the sparrows began to 
flutter and chirp in their noisy way, 
and Chatter Squirrel said to nobody 
in particular, 4 ‘Great acorns! but that 
was exciting! One minute Glider is 
playing a trick on Bobby Robin, and 
the next Silvertip jumps up from no¬ 
where at all and plays the biggest trick 
on Glider! Whew!’ 7 
“WeU,” answered Nibble Rabbit, 
“I’ve just been thinking that it doesn’t 
matter to me which eats which. 
They’re both tried to eat me since morn¬ 
ing.” He was still the little brown 
18 





NIBBLE LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 19 

knot on his log that he had frozen into 
when Silvertip came past. “Chatter, 
is Silvertip looking ?” 

“No. He’s spread out in the sun 
sleeping off his meal,” answered Chat¬ 
ter, craning his neck to see where Nib¬ 
ble was hidden. And his eyes fairly 
popped when that little brown knot 
slipped down from the far side of the 
log and limped away. 

He limped—for not only was Nibble 
a very tired rabbit from sitting so still, 
but his little mud boots that he got in 
the Broad Field when he was running 
away from Glider were all stiff and 
uncomfortable. How he did want a 
wash and a drink and a place to rest! 

He could hear water whispering not 
far away, but he didn’t dare go through 
the tunnels in the Prickly Ash Thicket 
to get to it. So he didn’t find the brook 
he knew. He went farther down where 
it spread out into a broad pond. It 


20 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

was all edged with reeds and rushes 
that had some delicious watercress 
growing up between their roots. He 
could step on the last year’s stalks 
which had been bent down by the Win¬ 
ter Wind and keep his feet safe from 
the sticky mud below. Pretty soon he 
found a little raft hidden in the middle 
of a clump of cattails. 

“This is the place for me/’ he said to 
himself. “It’s warm in the sun and 
snug from the wind, and nobody’ll ever 
find me.” So he curled up and went 
fast asleep. 

He awoke to feel a shadow falling 
across him. He looked up into the 
homeliest face he had ever seen. It 
was pointed, like his own, but fatter, 
and it had little cropped ears and 
sleepy, blinky eyes, and long yellow 
teeth that flashed when it said severely: 
“What are you doing here?” 


NIBBLE LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 21 

Poor Nibble! He was only half 
awake. He had forgotten where he 
was, and it’s rabbit nature to jump first 
and think while you run. He jumped. 
His feet slipped, he splashed and the 
water closed over his long ears. 

Then didn’t he kick and strangle! 
No sooner did he get his poor little nose 
out than it went under again. But the 
second time the green water parted and 
his scared eyes could see the rushes 
waving in the lovely air, and his lungs 
could get one more breath that tasted 
as sweet as clover in the spring, he felt 
a grip on the back of his neck. A gruff 
voice growled: “Take your time. 
You should learn to swim.” 

The next thing he knew he was be¬ 
ing shaken very hard. “Cough!” or¬ 
dered the gruff voice. “Shake your 
head till you get the water out of your 
ears! Now eat this!” And Nibble 


22 MOSTLY ABOtJT NIBBLE 

swallowed a peppery bite of root that 
made bis eyes pop, and set the tears 
streaming down his whiskers. 

“Who are you'?” he gasped. 

“Doctor Muskrat, of course,” an¬ 
swered the voice. “You couldn’t be in 
better paws.” But poor Nibble Babbit 
thought he couldn’t very well be in 
worse ones. Which was very ungrate¬ 
ful. 

“I’d rather be eaten than choked to 
death,” he thought. “But this awful 
old animal is perfectly satisfied with 
himself for doing it! Ah! Oh! Uh- 
huh!” he coughed. And Doctor Musk¬ 
rat sat back and looked more wise and 
pleased than ever. 

“I knew that would open your eyes,” 
he explained. “It was a flag-root 
gnawed in the wax of the moon. You 
see I know what every plant in the 
marsh is good for and I dry them for 
my medicine chest.” 


NIBBLE LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 23 

“What would have happened if you 
hadn’t given it to me?” asked Nibble 
weakly. 

“I didn’t risk it,” said Doctor Musk¬ 
rat, “so of course I don’t know. I 
gave you the proper remedy as soon as 
you could swallow, so of course you’re 
all right now. 

“In the full of the moon 
Eyes open soon. 

Plucked in the wane 
Eyes close again,” 

he quoted. “That’s the rule for flag- 
root. Now I’ll put you to sleep with 
the other dose if you need a rest and 
I’ll stay right here and watch you.” 

“Oh, no!” protested Nibble. He 
was just beginning to breathe and he 
didn’t want any more of kind Doctor 
Muskrat’s medicines. “I must look 
for my mother, under Hooter the Owl’s 
tree.” 

“First,” said the doctor looking at 


24 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

him very severely, “you must clean 
yourself up and put your fur in order. 
If your feet hadn’t been all caked with 
mud you wouldn’t have slipped.” 

“They were very uncomfortable, 
too,” Nibble agreed, glad that his swim 
had melted his boots, at last. “I kept 
them on so Glider the Blacksnake 
couldn’t track me.” And he told his 
experience with Glider and the Fox. 

“Nevertheless,” said Doctor Musk¬ 
rat, “you weren’t safe because you 
couldn’t keep your nose clean and smell 
all around you, nor your ears clean, so 
you could hear. Always be sure you 
know everything about it before you 
decide to try something new. For in¬ 
stance, rabbits don’t belong in a marsh, 
do they?” 

“No,” murmured Nibble, “But it 
looked so hidden and so safe.” 

“So hidden,” Doctor Muskrat 
snorted. “It’s a mercy it was I who 


NIBBLE LEAKNS HIS FORTUNE 25 

found you and not Slyfoot the Mink. 
So safe that you nearly drowned when 
you tried to get away. Now you say 
you want to visit the owl’s tree. Is 
that any place for a rabbit? Answer 
me that!” 

“No,” wailed Nibble. “But I want 
my mother and I don’t know where 
else to look. If that old owl did catch 
her he might as well take me too. 
Glider the Blacksnake ’most did, and 
Silvertip nearly ate me instead of him. 
He might as well. Nobody cares, any¬ 
how, if my mother’s gone. Why didn’t 
you just let me drown?” Which was 
no way at all of thanking Doctor Musk¬ 
rat for having rescued him. And tears 
of sorrow mingled with the tears that 
came from the awful medicine the old 
Doctor had given him. 

But Doctor Muskrat’s feelings 
weren’t hurt in the least. He could see 
that poor little Nibble was badly scared 


26 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

and all clammy and cold from his duck¬ 
ing besides. ‘ ‘ What you need, ’ ’ he said 
in his gruff voice, trying to make it 
sound really kind, “is a nap and some 
light but refreshing nourishment. 
What’ll it be—a fat frog? No ? I for¬ 
got that all of us don’t eat the same 

things. Let’s see-” He thought a 

minute and Nibble could see his nose 
twitch as though he imagined he were 
sniffing things as they came into his 
mind. Then he licked his lips. “I 
know,” he said, and at the word his 
scaly tail cut the water like a knife 
where it closed behind his vanishing 
heels. 

A minute passed, two, four. What 
had happened to him? Nibble began 
to remember how ungrateful he had 
been. He also remembered that Sly- 
foot the Mink might be creeping up, or 
the Brown March Hawk peering about 
as he flew by. He craned his neck and 




Dr. Muskrat pulls Nibble out of the 
broad pond 






f 


NIBBLE LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 27 

saw something floating down from up¬ 
stream as softly as a stick in the cur¬ 
rent. It was the fat old doctor with a 
big root in his mouth. 

He slipped up beside Nibble without 
a sound. “I had to scour the bottom 
to find this,” he explained. “It’s 
water chinquapin and it has proper¬ 
ties.” 

He said this so mysteriously that 
Nibble dared not ask him what “Prop¬ 
erties” were, so he tasted a little, very 
carefully, to see. Did you ever taste a 
water chinquapin yourself? It’s deli¬ 
cate and jelly-like, but so sweet and 
rich that you’d risk stepping on old 
Grandpop Snapping Turtle himself to 
.get some more. Nibble scraped the 
very rind of it. And then he thanked 
Doctor Muskrat for taking so mucli 
trouble over him. 

“Well,” growled the old doctor in a 
very pleased tone, “I’m glad you have 


28 MOSTLY ABOTJT NIBBLE 

found your manners, if not your cour¬ 
age. Now snuggle up and go to sleep.” 
And so Nibble cuddled against him in 
a nice warm lump to sleep off bis ful¬ 
ness. 

He didn’t wake until the pink re¬ 
flections from the setting sun were dy¬ 
ing out of the west and stars were al¬ 
ready twinkling in the sky. Doctor 
Muskrat was studying tbeir reflections 
where they sparkled in the pool. He 
was saying something to himself. 

“By dusk and by dawn he shall travel alone 

And all troubles are his excepting his own.’ * 

“Is that right?” and he pricked his 
ears. Nibble’s own ears flew up, but 
he couldn’t hear a word from those 
stars, dancing softly on the water in 
the night wind. That was because this 
was deep and secret magic. 

“You awake?” asked Doctor Musk¬ 
rat. “Well, that fortune was yours. 


NIBBLE LEARNS HIS FORTUNE 29 

I asked the stars most particularly. 
They wouldn’t tell me anything about 
your mother, but from the way they’re 
smiling I feel sure you’re going to find 
her in the end. They did say that Sly- 
foot had gone across the pond, so you 
had better hurry to the bank and find 
the quail.” 

Which last was strictly true and not 
magic at all, because the stars had 
danced very hard in Slyfoot’s ripples. 


CHAPTER III 


NIBBLE RABBIT TO THE RESCUE! 

4 O up on the bank and find the 

i IT quail,” Doctor Muskrat had 
advised. So Nibble Rabbit 
set out as obediently as possible, be¬ 
cause he meant to do exactly what the 
nice old gentleman told him to, though 
he didn’t know something that had hap¬ 
pened while he was taking his nap on 
the snug little raft among the reeds. 

You see, Doctor Muskrat had heard 
the quail come fluttering down to the 
pond for their evening drink, and he 
remembered that Bob White has the 
kindest heart in the world. So he 
squealed, very softly. And Bob flew 
right out to see what he wanted. 

30 


NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 31 

6 ‘Look at this bunny,” whispered the 
doctor, pointing his paddle paw at Nib¬ 
ble. “ Whatever am I going to do with 
him? I can’t take him into the under¬ 
water door to my own house, because he 
can’t dive. And if I make a hole in 
my roof it will leak, and besides it will 
be far too convenient for that clever 
mink, Slyfoot. He’d come right in by 
my regular tunnel if he didn’t know I 
was asleep with my teeth bared at the 
end of it. Couldn’t you look after him 
until morning?” 

“Surely I will,” answered Bob 
White. “Send him along as soon as 
he wakes. I’ll have our Watch Bird 
keep an eye out for him.” And off he 
flew. 

So Nibble was hopping ashore re¬ 
peating to himself his fortune that the 
stars had told the doctor for him. 

“By dusk and by dawn he shall travel alone, 

And all troubles are his excepting his own.” 


32 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

And lie wasn’t lonely any more be¬ 
cause, you see, that was part of his for¬ 
tune. 

But this time he didn’t travel alone 
very far. For just as he passed a nice, 
home-like looking thicket, out stepped 
a bird. “Come along,” he called 
cheerfully. “The rest of the flock are 
settled down by this time. I’ll show 
you the way.” And he went scuttling 
ahead through the grasses with Nibble 
hopping at his heels. 

They were right near a cluster of 
comfortable little thorn trees which 
grew on the edge of the Bluff where it 
leaned away out over the Sandy Beach 
below when they heard a startling noise. 
And the quail that was with Nibble 
spread his wings and hurried on as fast 
as he could fly. For the quail weren’t 
asleep at all. They were just ahead of 
him, all fluttering and scuttling and 
crying together. 


NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 33 

“Danger!” thought Nibble. For it 
made his very heart beat fast just to 
hear them. “Which way shall I run?” 
Then he remembered the last line of his 
fortune; so he crept up closer instead. 
Presently he stopped to listen—a weak 
little voice from under his very feet 
called, “Whit, whit!” in the saddest 
tone. 

He sat straight up and demanded: 
“What’s the trouble?” 

“Oh,” mourned Bob White, fran¬ 
tically beating his wings, “my mother 
ran under the edge of the bank and the 
earth caved in. And we can’t dig her 
out again.” 

And they couldn’t, either, for the 
clay was all full of the tough, tangled 
roots of the thorns. 

“I can,” said Nibble Rabbit. “All 
troubles are mine but my own. Where 
do I begin?” 

So they showed him the little bit of 


34 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

a hole where they had tried it them¬ 
selves and he settled his strong hind- 
feet and moved the little clawed spades 
of his forepaws so fast they fairly 
twinkled. When he found a root he 
used his chisel teeth. As soon as he 
gnawed it through his paws would 
begin to fly again. And the quail 
crowded around and whispered to each 
other. Presently they began to croon 
a sort of song. “He’s coming, coming, 
coming soon.” And the little quail 
deep in the bank would answer. 

The earth was loose, so she didn’t 
quite smother, but she did need a full 
breath of air. The time seemed very 
long to her. But it seemed longer still 
to Nibble Rabbit. Those roots were so 
tough his jaws ached. He had dug so 
hard his legs were getting numb. And 
the birds outside had lost sight of his 
tufty white tail. But they knew how 
he was working, for they could see the 



Nibble digs Bob White’s mother out of 
the bank 








































































































































































NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 35 

dirt fly when he kicked his strong hind 
feet to clear it out of the hole. 

Soon his little claws almost refused 
to move. But he wouldn’t let them 
stop! Then the “Whit!” sounded al¬ 
most in his ear. Now his feet fairly 
flew of themselves for a dozen strokes 
and—Victory! A weak little bunch of 
brown feathers hurst through the clay 
wall. And he backed out and helped 
Mother Quail to the cool fresh air out¬ 
side the hole. 

Nibble saw the quail all crowd 
around her, smoothing her ruffled 
feathers, loosening the dirt that was 
caked into them, and making little soft 
noises of delight that she was safe 
again. Then gradually he didn’t see 
anything at all. He had come as near 
fainting as any wild thing ever does 
except Mister Possum, who mostly pre¬ 
tends, and scary little Keree the Rail. 
He had fallen into a sound sleep. 


36 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

When he awoke he felt something 
tugging his ears. He opened his eyes 
and lay still, oh, so comfortable and 
warm. But the tugging kept up until 
he shook his head. Then Bob White 
whispered softly: “Come on, Nibble. 
Our Watch Bird has signalled that Sly- 
foot the Mink is swimming this way. 
We must hide.” 

So Nibble sat up, very stiff and sore. 
And he found why he had been so snug. 
Little quail were cuddled all around 
him. One by one they took their heads 
from under their wings, shook them¬ 
selves, and got ready to fly. And over¬ 
head in the darkness he could hear the 
Quails’ Watch Bird giving the hurry 
call. When he looked hard he could see 
the bird craning his neck against the 
dusky sky. 

So he shook himself, too, and fol¬ 
lowed Bob White as he led the flock in 
and out of the bushes. Pretty soon 


NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 37 

Bob gave a low whispering whistle and 
the birds took wing. i 6 Make a triangle, 
Nibble, over to the top of that log and 
then jump where you hear me call,” he 
said. 

So Nibble limped off past the log, 
turned back on his trail and dragged 
himself up on it. My but he was tired. 
He almost fell asleep once more out in 
that cold wind. But Bob’s whistle 
waked him again. He jumped and 
found his legs all tangled in a wild 
grape vine. 

That set Bob laughing softly. “It’s 
too bad,” he said, “but you see I for¬ 
got you couldn’t perch like a bird.” 

But Nibble didn’t mind. He just 
kicked and wriggled until he tumbled 
to the ground and the blanket of little 
quail closed around him again. 

Early in the morning a soft order 
woke him. “Hold your scent! Hold 
your scent!” He didn’t know exactly 


38 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

what it meant, but all the quail stopped 
ruffling their feathers to keep warm 
and closed them tight about their 
bodies. So he sleeked his fur and lis¬ 
tened with all his ears. And he just 
caught the faintest sniffing—from the 
top of the log, not ten feet away. It 
wasn’t any bird. It was- 

Slyfoot! And, oh! how Nibble trem¬ 
bled. But the quail didn’t; they were 
only very still. And then Nibble heard 
another tiny sound—the sound of twigs 
scraping together. That was Bob 
White slipping through the branches. 
He was walking along an overhead 
pathway, so as not to make a whir with 
his wings. 

Soon Nibble heard Bob beating and 
flapping over behind the log. “Oh,” 
he cried. “My wing—my poor wing! 
Oh, it’s broken! Help, Oh-h-h!” Nib¬ 
ble wanted to go, but the other quail 
held him still. 



NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 39 

Plump! went Slyfoot, all feet at once, 
as he jumped for the crippled bird. 
“Har-r-r!” he snarled as he just missed 
a mouthful of feathers. He jumped 
again. “Oh-h! Help!” wailed Boh as 
he flapped off. And the sounds died in 
the distance. 

But just as Nibble was beginning to 
scold the Quail because they wouldn’t 
let him go and lead Slyfoot away, Bob 
came sailing into the thicket with his 
wing as good as ever. He was laugh¬ 
ing. ‘ i Topknots and Tailfeathers! ” he 
exclaimed, “but I gave Slyfoot a merry 
chase! He’s over in the Briers by 
the Pasture fence with his feet as 
prickery as a set of thistle-burs.” He 
limped over the dry leaves to show how 
Slyfoot walked with prickers in his 
paws. 

Nibble laughed with him. “Won’t 
he be angrier than ever?” he asked. 

“He’s never anything else,” chuckled 


40 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

Bob cheerfully. “But he won’t bother 
us again until he thinks we’ve forgot¬ 
ten about him. So we’ll get our break¬ 
fast before we move.” And all the 
birds began scuttling about, making as 
much noise as they pleased. When 
Nibble dug himself a root they all 
crowded around for a taste of it, so 
there was very little left for himself. 
But they shook off some fresh thorn- 
apples for him and when he wanted to 
try the sumach they thought was so nice 
they perched on a branch until they 
weighed it down within his reach. 

They ate and ate, for they were get¬ 
ting ready to travel. Of course they 
haven’t any trunks to pack, but they 
pack their little crops instead until they 
can hardly fly. 

“We can’t sleep here again,” Bob ex¬ 
plained, “until the dark of the next 
moon. Then you’ll know where to find 
us.” 


NIBBLE TO THE RESCUE! 


41 


“Why?” demanded Nibble curiously. 

“Slyfoot will stay here until then, be¬ 
cause he knows all the hiding places. 
You mayn’t believe it, but he’s afraid 
to travel by moonlight on account of 
Hooter the Owl. Just the same, he is 
as restless as we are. On the first dark 
night he looks for a new hunting place 
as far away as he can.” 

“Where are you going?” Nibble 
wanted to know. He felt sorry to lose 
them. 

Bob stood up and flapped his wings 
to feel the air. “East or west,” he an¬ 
swered. “This wind is north. And 
it’s very strong. We couldn’t go far 
against it and if we went south it would 
tip up our tails and send us tumbling. 
But if we fly across it will lift us and 
help us along.” He took a little trial 
trip. Then he settled beside Nibble 
again. “West,” he said, “to the 
deepest woods. There’s a smell of 


42 


MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 


weather. Come on. Whit! Whit! 
Good-bye, Nibble.” And they whirred 
away before Nibble could ask what Bob 
meant. 



Nibble darted into the first shock he 

came to 














































. 

0 











M 








' 











CHAPTER IV 


WHAT HAPPENS WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR 
TEMPERS 

N HBBLE found out pretty soon 
what “a smell of weather” 
meant. When he went down 
to the Pond for a drink he saw a family 
of ducks. Some of them were pad¬ 
dling around and some had gone to 
sleep on shore in the sun. He spoke 
to one who had a beautiful green head 
and shiny blue feathers in his wings. 
“ Good-morning, ” he said timidly. 

“Eh? What?” quacked the duck in 
his hoarse voice, ruffling his feathers 
angrily. “Oh, a rabbit. Good morn- 
ing.” 

“Slyfoot the Mink lives here,” 

43 



44 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

warned Nibble. “ You might be caught 
before you know.” 

“Thank you,” said the duck “we’re 
going South in half an hour.” 

“Won’t the wind tip you?” Nibble 
meant to be kind. 

“Ho, ho,” laughed the duck. 
“You’ve been talking to the quail. Of 
course not. We’re Mallards. We fly 
faster than the wind. Now I’ll tell you 
something. This wind is carrying 
more than ducks. Can’t you smell it ? ” 

Nibble sat up and sniffed very care¬ 
fully. “It’s queer and dry,” he said, 
“and it seems to make my fur want to 
stand on end.” 

“Go make yourself a nest, Bunny,” 
said the duck good-naturedly. “What 
you smell is a Terrible Storm coming, 
and it’s coming mighty fast.” He 
turned back his shining green head to 
fix the little curly feathers that quirked 
up over his tail. Below his white collar 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 45 

lie wore a vest of the rich red which all 
rabbits especially admire, and Nibble 
was quite awed by his elegance. 

“Come along , 9 ’ he called to the other 
ducks who were paddling about in the 
shallow water and feeding among the 
roots of the water lilies. “It’s time 
you put your wings in order for a long 
trip.” And he set the example by 
spreading his own feathers and laying 
them very cleverly with his wide beak. 

Nibble noticed a lady duck who wore 
the same colours as himself. She stood 
on her head with just her tail and her 
yellow legs showing out of water, until 
he was really afraid she was drowning. 
When she did come up straight again 
she paddled ashore as fast as she could. 
“The fish know,” she told her mate. 
“There’s not a fin stirring, and that big 
pickerel I was afraid of has buried him¬ 
self in the mud. When the fish know 
about a storm it’s high time we were 


46 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

gone.” And site began preening her 
feathers in a great hurry. 

“Are you afraid of a fish?” Nibble 
was surprised. 

“Sometimes,” said she. “If it’s big 
enough to catch us by the leg and pull 
us under the water. We take turns 
watching while we have our heads down. 
Everything is afraid of something. 
But I’m much more afraid of that big 
black cloud and the thing that’s driving 
it.” And she went back to preening 
harder than ever. 

“You see, Bunny,” said her good- 
natured mate, “this is really no ordi¬ 
nary storm. We saw it grow. We 
were way up north where the wind 
sings in the pines and the ice cracks 
like the shot of a gun. And this storm 
woke up. It wasn’t very big at first, 
and it cried very softly. Pretty soon 
it stood up over the tree tops, taller and 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 47 

taller every minute. And then it be¬ 
gan to howl. It howled so loudly that 
even the wolves stopped to listen. 
But we didn’t We came away very 
quickly, before it could catch us. And 
we’ll keep on going until it stops.” 

“What will it do if it catches you?” 
demanded Nibble, opening his eyes very 
wide. 

“It’ll throw snow all over us so we 
can’t see our way to fly,” answered the 
lady duck. “It’ll cover up all the 
water with ice so we can’t feed. When 
it’s very had we can’t even find a hole 
big enough to thaw our feet in. Ugh! 
I hate to fly so fast. We ought to have 
come three days ago. I knew what it 
was the first day when it snarled at the 
wind. It wasn’t afraid! ’ ’ 

“Afraid ?” Nibble sat up and wiggled 
his ears at the idea. “Are storms ever 
afraid.” 


48 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“Of course/’ said she, as though he 
ought to have known. “I told you 
everything is afraid of something.” 

Nibble knew this was true. Here he 
was afraid of Slyfoot, and Slyfoot was 
afraid of Hooter. The ducks were 
afraid of the storm, and the storm 
was afraid of- 

“ Afraid of the wind!” finished 
Madame Mallard. “As long as a 
storm can keep its head nothing can 
stop it. But it doesn’t. Sooner or 
later it breaks into a rage and begins to 
thrash around. When a storm really 
loses its temper the next sensible wind 
can smash it into bits. It never pays to 
lose your temper. Something always 
happens if you do.” 

Nibble was very much excited. But 
he wasn’t too excited to think of a good 
place to hide. There was that nice 
little tent made by a leaning shock of 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 49 

corn out in the Broad Field. As he 
passed the Brushpile, Chatter Squirrel 
was darting up a hickory tree with a 
mouthful of leaves. “There’s going 
to be a Terrible Storm,” called Nibble 
cheerfully, “the Mallards just told me 
about it.” 

“Who doesn’t know that?” snapped 
Chatter, fussing with a clutter of leaves 
and twigs in the crotch of his hickory. 
“My home’s not half done. I thought 
I’d take my time and make a good one. 
Now here comes this Storm! If I can’t 
get it finished I’ll have to go over to 
that leaky old Oak that has bats in it. 
Yah!” And he swore in Squirrel 
language because one of the sticks he 
was using had snapped and he had to 
go for another one. 

“The Ducks say you musn’t lose your 
temper, because something always hap¬ 
pens,” quoted Nibble. And he didn’t 


50 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

mean to be impertinent. He was just 
pleased with himself for remembering 
it. 

“ It ’ll happen to you, then,” Chatter 
retorted in a rage. “You and your 
ducks! You’ll stand there trying to 
mind my business for me until Silver- 
tip catches you.” But there’s no way 
of knowing how much angrier Chatter 
might have been because right then 
something did happen. He gave one 
shriek—“Hooter!”—and made a flying 
leap for that hollow Oak Tree. And 
Mrs. Hooter clapped her beak at the 
hole. 

“Stickly Prickles!” said Nibble to 
himself—that really isn’t swearing. 
“What are those owls doing out this 
time of the day?” For he could see 
Hooter flapping sleepily along behind 
his mate. It was too early in the 
day for him. It was a badly fright¬ 
ened rabbit who made the best of his 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 51 

chance while they were chasing Chatter 
to dart across the Cloverpatch and into 
the first shock he came to. 

But he didn’t stay there. Just as he 
began to breathe again he heard the 
voice of Mrs. Hooter right abdve him. 
She was speaking crossly to her hus¬ 
band. 6 6 Pay attention, ’ ’ she said. 6 ‘ It 
may be three days before we can hunt 
again. He went in there. I saw him. ’ ’ 

Nibble guessed that a small brown 
rabbit was the “he” they wanted, so 
he slipped out of the other side of that 
shock and ran across to the next. 

“There he goes!” screeched Mrs. 
Hooter. “There he goes! Catch him, 
quick!” But Hooter was too slow. 
Nibble was safe again. 

But was he? For in that second 
shock slept—Silvertip the Fox! 

Silvertip was curled up in a ball with 
his tail about his feet. Of course he 
woke up the minute he heard the Hoot- 


52 


MOSTLY ABOUT .NIBBLE 


ers and pricked up his ears. What¬ 
ever were they shouting about ? 

In all that noise he never heard the 
soft sound of Nibble’s breathing right 
behind him. He never sniffed any¬ 
thing but Owl. For they were very 
close. 

“Go in and drive him out!” ordered 
Mrs. Hooter. 

“I—er—I’ve never done anything of 
the kind,” Hooter objected. “I don’t 
think I care to begin.” 

“Coward!” hissed Mrs. Hooter. 
And she flew into a terrible temper. 
She shook him until his beak rattled. 
Then she bounced him down. “You 
see to it that you catch him when he 
comes out!” she raved. “I’ll go my¬ 
self!” 

And she did. Eight into Silvertip! 
And let me tell you that for one min¬ 
ute feathers flew and fur frazzled. 
Then Mrs. Hooter flew squawking out 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 53 

one side and Silvertip limped yelping 
out of the other and Nibble said to him¬ 
self, “I’m so glad it wasn’t my temper 
that was lost.” He had the little corn¬ 
stalk tent all to himself. A clawful of 
feathers and a beakful of fur were all 
that was left of the fight. “And they 
can’t come back,” he said to himself, 
“because nobody could move in this aw¬ 
ful wind.” 

For right that minute the Terrible 
Storm swooped down out of its Black 
Cloud. “Look out,” it shrieked, “I’m 
bad! I’ll show you what I can do to 
you if I want to. Old Earth, I’m go¬ 
ing to turn you upside down! I’ll 
make you into a rubbish pile, I will! 
Wow-w-w!” Which was very mean 
because it had no quarrel with the Old 
Earth and the poor wild things. 

Nibble shook to the tips of his furry 
little toes when he heard it. Once he 
tried to poke his nose out, just a tiny 


54 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

bit, to see what was happening, but the 
Terrible Storm tweaked his whiskers 
and threw snow into his eyes. So he 
backed in again and listened to the trees 
shouting to each other. “Oh! Oh! 
I’m cracking! Hold me! Please, 
please—I’m going to fall!” 

Pretty soon he heard a terrible groan 
with a crash at the end of it. And then 
he heard a little sound wailing above 
the wind and the trees. It was calling 
for help. It was Chatter Squirrel! 
Then he knew it was the Big Oak who 
stood alone by the Clover Patch that 
had blown down. 

Suddenly Nibble found he wasn’t 
scared of that bully of a Storm. That 
is, not so very, very scared. Not too 
scared to crawl out of his tent, digging 
his little toes into the ground to keep 
from blowing away, his nose close down 
in the grasses, his eyes half closed to 
keep out the snow and look for poor 


"WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 55 

Chatter. He called once or twice, but 
he was very close before Chatter could 
hear. 

“Where am I?” he sobbed. “Oh, 
my nest is all smashed and I don’t know 
where I am. Is this the end of the 
world?” 

“No,” said Nibble, and he nearly 
laughed because Chatter was so funny 
when he was afraid. “It’s only the end 
of the Big Oak. I have a place to sleep 
and plenty of food. Come along.” 

“Me too,” called Gimlet the Little 
Downy Woodpecker who lived in a 
branch of the tree. “Us too,” 
chorused all the little field-mice who had 
burrowed in its roots. And “Us, too,” 
piped three partridges who had been 
snuggled in the bushes beside it. Even 
two little bats who had lived in the tall 
dark cave of its hollow trunk came 
scuttling and crawling, holding on tight 
to whatever fur they could touch. 


56 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

Every one came but Cheewee the Chick¬ 
adee who said he would do very nicely 
where he was, although his nest, an old 
woodpecker hole, was all queer and up¬ 
side down. 

They scuttled along together, travel¬ 
ling fast because now the wind was 
pushing them from behind. And the 
snow drove under their feathers and 
fur until it stung their very skins and 
nipped the ends of Nibble’s blowy ears, 
but he kept saying, “I’m going to have 
a party! I’m going to have a party!” 
so pleased and happy that every one was 
trying to smile by the time they reached 
his little cornstalk house. 

The Terrible Storm had tried to 
knock that down, but only spread it out 
so there was more room in it than ever. 
And the snow had tried to smother it, 
but had only succeeded in stopping up 
the cracks so that it was snug and 
warm. And the bats hung themselves 


WHEN FOLKS LOSE THEIR TEMPERS 57 

upside down from the middle of it and 
turned down their little webby tails over 
their toes like the flap of an envelope 
and went to sleep again. 


CHAPTER Y 


NIBBLE RABBIT'S STORM PARTY 

F OR three days and three nights 
Nibble Rabbit’s storm party 
stayed in the little Cornstalk tent 
in the middle of the Broad Field. 
The Terrible Storm might behave as 
badly as it pleased but they were hav¬ 
ing too good a time to care. And it 
might yowl as loudly as it could but 
they were making too much noise to 
listen. For they knew that no one was 
going to interrupt them. 

When nobody could eat any more 
they began to amuse themselves. First 
of all they had a dance. The three par¬ 
tridges could drum with their wings 
and Nibble with his feet, for they 
learned it from the Indians. Gimlet 


58 


NIBBLE BABBITTS STORM PARTY 59 

the Woodpecker tapped with much 
spirit on an empty corn cob, and Chat¬ 
ter Squirrel called out the directions, 
while the mice did the dancing. 

The little lady mice held their tails 
like trains, sweeping the ground when 
they curtseyed, but their partners 
cocked their tails to the left side, and 
Chatter got so excited that he waved his 
about in time to his commands and 
curled the tip of it when they bowed. 
And the partridges thought he was so 
funny that they nearly had to stop 
drumming to laugh at him. 

When the mice were so breathless 
from whirling and twirling that they 
had to stop they urged Nibble to take 
a turn. “We’ve seen you,” they said, 
“on moonlight nights when we dance 
inside the Fairy Rings.” You see the 
mushrooms make little dance halls for 
the Fairies to use on Midsummer Eve. 
They have smooth, velvety grass on the 


60 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

inside with a circle of little cushiony 
stools around them. And the mice use 
them after the Fairies are through. 
Only they use the seats to hide under 
when Hooter the Owl flits past. They 
nibble them, too, for refreshments. 
You can see their toothmarks on every 
Fairy Ring you find after midsummer. 

“I can’t dance,” murmured Nibble. 
He felt a bit embarrassed. Rabbits do 
try sometimes out in the brush where 
they think no one can see them, but they 
are very clumsy about it. “I never 
learned,” he explained. 

“Dear me,” said a lively little mouse. 
“Why don’t you step into a Charmed 
Circle some night when the moon 
smiles ? Then you can’t help dancing. ’ 9 

“Yes indeed,” chimed in Chatter, 
who calls out their dances for the elves 
and so knows more about them than 
anybody else. “You know the May 


NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM PARTY 61 

Moon draws the Circle as soon as the 
trees bud their leaves, so she can tell 
where there is no danger of their cast¬ 
ing a shadow on the Great Ball. Some 
of the wee Wild Folk count shadows 
very unlucky. From then until it is 
over, tooth may not crop without sing¬ 
ing, nor foot step there without dan¬ 
cing.” 

“ Yes, ” finished the lady mouse. < ‘ So 
we take our children there until they 
have danced three turns. After that 
they never forget it. But we don’t like 
to let them eat. Singing is unlucky for 
a mouse. But dancing is so delight¬ 
ful.” 

“It looks so,” said Nibble soberly, 
“but no rabbit can dance until he grows 
a tail.” 

“Gracious,” said the lady mouse. 
“I’d forgotten you hadn’t—a regular 
one.” When she saw Nibble’s feelings 


62 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

weren’t hurt, she asked, “Do you mind 
telling us why?” 

“Certainly not,” Nibble assured her. 
“It happened back when the world was 
young and the new creatures were 
choosing where they would live. Some 
chose the mountains and some the 
plains, some the sea and some the air. 
But my great-great-great-great—I 
can’t know how many greats I ought 
to use—grandfather sat back on his 
elegant fluffy tail and wondered about 
it. 

“Bight near him sat a queer, snaky- 
looking animal. He had pricked-up 
ears and a bushy tail but his voice was 
a hissy whisper. He was talking to a 
crowd of beasts and birds and they 
couldn’t take their eyes off him. No 
wonder, for the things he said made my 
great-grandfather’s ears stiff just to 
listen to. 

“Mother Nature came by and she was 


NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM PARTY 63 

very busy. ‘ Speak up, you with the 
tall ears,’ she said. ‘Where do you 
choose?’ 

“ ‘Please,’ said my great-grand¬ 
father, ‘I don’t choose at all yet. I just 
want to live on the earth until I see 
what these things are eating.’ 

“ ‘Oh, ho!’ remarked Mother Nature, 
looking at him very hard. You see 
with more than your ears. And what 
are you eating your own self?’ 

“ ‘A nibble here and a nibble there,’ 
answered my great-grandfather, ‘but 
I take nothing that will not be again as 
it was before.’ 

“ ‘Good!’ said Mother Nature. 
‘Make your choice when you please 
and it shall be as you wish.’ Then 
she turned to those others near him. 
‘Who are you?’ she asked the strange- 
looking one, ‘and where do you choose?’ 

“ ‘I’m the Weasel,’ he answered. 
‘I came up from under the earth.’ 


64 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“ ‘Ah,’ sighed Mother Nature, 4 1 
knew some of you would get here. But 
choose.’ 

“ ‘I shall live anywhere I can lay my 
foot,’ announced the Weasel boldly. 
‘And I shall eat fish, flesh and fowl, 
whatever I can catch.’ And the other 
beasts all nodded at one another. 

“‘For hunger?’ asked Mother Na¬ 
ture. And most of her beasts who had 
been listening to the Weasel answered, 
‘For hunger,’ because they thought it 
was the thing to do. 

“‘For the joy of killing!’ snarled 

the Weasel. ‘Like this-’ And he 

sprang at my great-grandfather. 

“But my great-grandfather gave a 
mighty leap. He landed in a briar 
patch and began racing through it. 
And all the briars called, ‘He chooses 
us—a beast has chosen us. Catch him! 
Hold him!’ and they caught him by his 



NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM' PARTY 65 

tall ears and elegant fluffy tail so hard 
that they stopped him short. 

“ ‘Let me go,’ he begged. ‘Please 
let me go. The Weasel will kill me.’ 

“Then the briars cried until the tears 
dripped from their twigs. ‘Nobody 
wants us,’ they sobbed. ‘Please choose 
us. If you lay back your ears and 
shorten your tail we’ll never stop you. 
We’ll shelter you from the summer 
sun and the winter wind. We’ll warn 
you of your enemies and bar your path 
behind you. We’ll serve you as long as 
you let us.’ 

“And just then my great-grandfather 
thought he could hear the Weasel very 
close, so he cried despairingly. ‘I’ll 
choose the Pickery Things.’ Down 
dropped his ears, up shrunk his tail, 
and away he ran. But we’ve never 
been sorry. The Pickery Things have 
kept their word.” 


66 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

1 ‘Dear me, how interesting!” said the 
lady mouse when Nibble Eabbit had 
finished. “But could you have your 
long tail back if you wanted to?” 

“It might be managed,” said Nibble. 
“Mother Nature said it wasn’t fair for 
the Weasel to begin living before the 
other things had all made up their 
minds. He really frightened my great¬ 
grandfather into making that choice. 
And it really wasn’t fair of the briars 
to hold him. But Mother Nature ad¬ 
vised us to try it until we were sure we 
wanted our tails back again and then 
let her know. She didn’t actually 
promise to give them, as I remember,” 
he added honestly. 

And then a commotion broke loose in 
the little cornstalk tent where Nibble’s 
party were hiding from the Terrible 
Storm. “Why don’t you grow one? 
What kind do you want? Try one like 
mine! Or mine!!” shouted all the 


NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM PARTY 67 

voices until even Nibble’s long ears 
couldn’t bold all tbe noise. 

“Your long leaps are almost like 
flying,” said the Partridge. “We 
couldn’t steer without our tails.” 

“Yes, and then you could balance 
yourself in the trees,” advised Chatter 
Squirrel. 

“Or hold on by it as we do,” said a 
wise old mouse. 

“My cousin lost hers,” ^murmured 
Gimlet, shaking his red Woodpecker’s 
cap very seriously. “And she nearly 
starved before it grew out again. She 
couldn’t sit comfortably on a tree-trunk 
without it.” 

“A tail,” squeaked the bats who 
hadn’t been heard from since they hung 
themselves up from the roof, “a tail is 
the handiest pocket in the world. You 
use it for flies in summer and to warm 
your paws in winter. Do have one.” 

“I do use mine,” said Nibble laugh- 


68 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

ing, “but not for any of the reasons you 
give. I fash mine so any rabbit behind 
me can tell whether it’s safe to follow 
me. Why, my mother never bothered 
to talk as long as she knew I could see 
her tail.” And he showed them how 
he could make the little white puff 
underneath it show and disappear. 

“Well, I never thought it was any 
good at all,” marvelled Chatter. 

“Another thing,” said Nibble. 
“Ours was no more use than Tad 
Coon’s. Just a great big brush to carry 
around. All you could possibly do 
with it was warm your feet. And we 
never slept half the year like Tad does, 
so where would be the use of that?” 

“But Tad Coon’s was useful once,” 
argued Chatter. “His old great-aunt 
wanted to go on a pilgrimage early one 
spring. But the water was high in the 
marsh and she was so fat and crippled 
with age that she couldn’t swim. So 


NIBBLE BABBIT’S STORM PARTY 69 

Tad would go down every morning and 
stick in his tail to show her how deep 
it was. There would be a brown mark 
where the mud came and a white mark 
where the water washed it off above. 
Every morning the rings would be 
lower until there was only a little black 
mud stain on the very tip of it. Then 
she started off and all the black she got 
was a little on the very soles of her 
feet.” 

“And he never bothered to wash it 
clean again,” said Nibble, “so you see 
how little use it is to him.” 

“You’re just jealous,” giggled the 
lady mouse. “That puff you wear is 
no bigger than the fuzz off a pussy¬ 
willow.” And then Chatter Squirrel 
and Gimlet the Woodpecker and the 
Partridge all tried their best to make 
Nibble say that even if he didn’t own 
a real tail he’d like to try one. 

Which of course he wouldn’t. For 


70 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

no decent rabbit would go back on bis 
great-grandfather’s bargain with the 
Pickery Things. “No,” he insisted, 
“I truly wouldn’t know what to do with 
one at all. If it dragged, my gawky 
legs would stumble on it. If it stood 
up, my floppy ears would get tangled 
in it. I guess I’d have to walk like 

this-” And he limped across the 

dancing floor pretending to get all 
mixed up in a tail that wouldn’t get out 
of the way. He tripped on it and he 
kicked it and at last he pretended to 
pick it up in his mouth and carry it. 

Chatter Squirrel laughed until his 
feet danced under him. As for the 
lady mouse she simply squeaked with 
joy. But the bats, who live in the 
woods and sleep all day couldn’t under¬ 
stand. And they were very serious 
about it. A bat hasn’t any fun in him 
at all. 


NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM PARTY 71 

“He’s got a tail,” said one, peering 
at Nibble. 

“Of course,” answered the other 
sleepily, not troubling to open his eyes 
to look. 6 ‘ Everything’s got a tail, Pish, 
Bird or Beast. They couldn’t get on 
without one. It stands to reason.” 

“How about frogs?” demanded Gim¬ 
let sharply. * ‘ They haven’t any. ’ ’ 

Now the bat had never particularly 
noticed a frog. But you couldn’t fool 
him. “He’s got one,” he answered 
cheerfully. “Only sensible folks keep 
it folded up under them like we do. 
Quite proper, too. One that drags is 
so untidy.” 

“Untidy!” snapped the lady mouse. 
“What do you call one with a skin 
pocket like yours, all cluttered up with 
fly-wings, Eh?” 

“Oh, but he hasn’t,” said Gimlet, and 
Nibble echoed, “No, truly he hasn’t.” 


72 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“Then he’s not Fish, Bird, or 
Beast!” repeated the sleepy bat. “It 
stands to reason. ’ ’ And the other crea¬ 
tures looked at each other curiously, 
for they didn’t know what to say. 

“He isn’t Fish, Bird, or Beast, is 
he?” fluttered a partridge. And the 
bat nodded as though he knew it all the 
time. 

“All right,” agreed Chatter cheer¬ 
fully. “But how about Man?” 

“Man?” shouted Nibble and the mice 
and the partridge all together. For 
this was news! When the Woodsfolk 
see a man they don’t stop to look at 
him; they run and hide. And Nibble 
had never even got a glimpse of one 
yet. Neither had the bats. But the 
sleepy bat just kept on insisting, “He’s 
neither Fish, Bird, nor Beast, if he 
hasn’t a tail.” 

“Then what is he?” demanded Chat- 


NIBBLE RABBIT’S STORM PARTY 73 

ter. He thought he had asked some¬ 
thing the bat couldn’t answer. 

“What does he wear?” said the bat. 

And now it was Chatter who didn’t 
know what to say. For a Man doesn’t 
wear scales or feathers or fur. “I 
think he wears a skin—like a frog,” he 
said at last. 

“I told you so!” And the bat nod¬ 
ded away more conceitedly than ever. 
And nothing the others could say made 
any difference. 

“But he’s not green,” objected Chat¬ 
ter. “And he doesn’t hop. He’s ever 
so much bigger, and he’s tan, like your 
vest, Nibble, or pink, like the inside of 
your mouth.” Chatter had seen the 
little boys at the swimming-hole and 
some of them must have been sun¬ 
burned. 

“Now isn’t that queer,” remarked a 
partridge. “The one we saw seemed 


74 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

all brown and wrinkly and shelly, like 
Grandpop Snappingturtle. And he 
made a noise like a Summer Storm.’’ 
She meant a man in a shooting-coat 
who fired a gun. 

“Nothing queer about,” announced 
Gimlet cheerfully. Gimlet knows more 
than all the rest of them because he 
works for the man in the Orchard and 
is on very good terms with the whole 
Man tribe. “They come in as many 
shapes and sizes and colours as flowers.” 
You see Gimlet doesn’t know the differ¬ 
ence between men and women and chil¬ 
dren. “They make as many different 
noises as all of us put together and do 
as many different things.” 

“I’m going to take a good long look 
at the first man I see,” said Nibble. 
“I will, if I know him when I see him. 
That’s the only way I’ll ever under¬ 
stand what you’ve been talking about.” 



Silvertip pricked up his ears 












NIBBLE BABBIT’S STOKM PARTY 75 

“Don’t do it,” shouted all the others. 
“Keep away from Man! Keep away 
from Man! He’s more dangerous than 
Silvertip!” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE LITTLE BUNNY MEETS THE LITTLE 
BOY 

4Twhiskers!” Nibble started 
\/| to bis feet at the very idea. 

“What if the Terrible Storm 
should be over and Silvertip comes 
sneaking back!” And immediately 
they all looked very serious. They 
seemed to feel in their hearts that 
something had gone wrong while they 
were having their fun. A moment 
more and they knew it! 

Nibble started to scratch away the 
snow that had drifted the door of the 
cornstalk tent closed behind them, 
three days ago. He clawed and he 
thumped and he pushed and he 
squirmed but at last he had to sit back 

76 



THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 77 

and confess, “My nails won’t take a 
hold. It’s all solid ice outside. We’re 
frozen in!” 

“Frozen in!” exclaimed the par¬ 
tridge. They knew what that meant. 
It meant that you couldn’t breathe 
through ice as you can through snow, 
so you smother in the long run. It 
seemed that Nibble’s lovely party was 
going to have a sad ending indeed. 

The partridge tried but soon tired 
out. Then Gimlet tried, but he only 
froze his bill. 

Suddenly, Bump! Bump! sounded 
from outside. 

“It’s Silvertip,” said Chatter sadly. 
“He’s digging his way in.” 

“He can’t catch us all,” answered 
Nibble, “unless we stay inside. We 
must burst out in a body, right in his 
face, and take our chances. Beady 
now—here we go!” 

And at the word the snow crashed in 


78 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

on the tent floor and Nibble leaped 
through the hole, with the partridges 
roaring their wings behind him. 

Nibble threw a frightened look over 
his shoulder as he ran to see if Silver- 
tip were following. Then he stopped 
dead, and turned around, and sat up 
and took a good long look, exactly as he 
said he would. “That’s a Man,” he 
said to himself , t ‘ That’s a Man, for sure 
and certain. What paws!” 

It was Tommy Peel, in his new red 
mittens, who had kicked in the door 
with the heel of his tall rubber boots to 
see what was making that noise inside. 
And he was just about as grown-up for 
a Man as Nibble was for a Rabbit. 
And what he was doing out in the 
Broad Field was an awful secret. 

Said Nibble to himself, “He’s not at 
all like a frog and he’s not like Grand- 
pop Snappingturtle one little bit. He 
reminds me much more of Redwing the 


THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 79 

Blackbird. ’ ’ That was because Tommy 
bad on bis dark navy-blue sweater and 
bis new red mittens and bis tall rubber 
boots. “That isn’t fur nor feathers 
nor scales he’s wearing, but it certainly 
isn’t skin. Nevertheless,” Nibble told 
himself, “he has no tail, so a man is all 
be can possibly be. But be hasn’t any 
hunger-light in his eyes. I wonder 
why he’s so much to be feared?” 

“That’s the cunningest little bunny,” 
thought Tommy Peele. “I wish I 
could catch it and put it in a cage to 
play with. I believe I’ll set a trap for 
it.” 

Now if Tommy had wanted to kill 
him, Nibble would have known by the 
way he looked. But Nibble never 
dreamed of a trap. That was another 
thing he didn’t know about. And 
Tommy didn’t think of killing Nibble 
because he was only nine years old and 
you have to be thirteen years old and 


80 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

in the eighth grade before yon can have 
a gun. 

Besides, wild things only hunt so that 
they can eat. But if Tommy Peele 
could only catch Nibble, he meant to be 
very good to him. He was going to 
give him the best of food and a fine 
cage. He didn’t think Nibble would be 
unhappy with a nice cosy place to live 
in. You see Tommy Peele lived in a 
house himself, which is a kind of a cage 
when you come to think about it. He 
didn’t think how different that was 
from living like a wild thing. 

So the small boy and the smaller rab¬ 
bit were looking at each other in a very 
friendly way. When all of a sudden 
the Wind told Nibble something. A 
light crunch of snow tickled his long 
ear and a soft whiff of scent tickled his 
nose. Silvertip the Pox had just 
jumped over the rail fence into the 
Clover Patch, right behind him. 


THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 81 

‘ 6 Danger! Come along! ’’ lie thumped 
with his little hind feet. “This way! 
It’s all clear ahead!” he flashed in rab¬ 
bity signals from his puffy tail. And 
he dashed off down the Broad Field. 

But Tommy Peele didn’t follow. 
You see he didn’t understand that sort 
of talk. He just turned and looked 
after Nibble, saying to himself, “I wish 
that little bunny wasn’t so skeery. 
Wonder if I couldn’t tame him?” 

Nibble made a proper triangle and 
brought up under a thorn bush in the 
fence row before he dared to look be¬ 
hind him. And then his heart gave an 
awful bump. For there stood Tommy 
Peele in his red mittens, exactly where 
Nibble had left him. He had turned 
around so he could watch Nibble. And 
Silvertip was creeping up behind him! 
The wind was blowing straight from 
Silvertip to Tommy, warning him as 
plainly as it had warned Nibble two 


82 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

minutes before, but Tommy didn’t pay 
any attention. “Poor Man,” Nibble 
almost sobbed. “You won’t listen to 
the wind and you won’t listen to me— 
I wish your mother were here to take 
care of you.” He said that because he 
was still so lonely for his own mammy. 

Silvertip sniffed about the first corn- 
shock. Then he crept along, pretty 
carefully, to the one where the owls had 
found him, and Nibble had given his 
party. Suddenly he caught sight of 
Tommy Peele, red mittens, tall rubber 
boots, and all, standing with his back 
to him. And he leaped—but he leaped 
the other way as fast as ever he could. 
And Nibble wanted to kick up his heels 
with joy, because he knew something 
Silvertip was afraid of. But Tommy 
Peele never knew anything at all about 
it. 

Just about the time Silvertip’s tail 
dusted the middle rail of the fence, 



Nibble hid behind a fence post 






THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 83 

Tommy decided to follow the bunny 
and see where he had gone to. Nib¬ 
ble had been calling him to run away 
from Silvertip a minute or two before, 
but now he didn’t wait for Tommy 
Peele. “If that wicked fox is so 
frightened,” he said to himself, “I 
can’t be too careful. But I don’t see 
what he could do to me; he hasn’t any 
claws and he most certainly can’t run.” 

Of course Tommy had to wade slowly 
through the snow while Nibble could 
go skimming and skipping over the top 
of it. So the little rabbit just went a 
short way farther and hid behind a 
fence post. 

Tommy tramped and trudged until 
he had followed the bunny tracks to 
where Nibble had hidden in the bush. 
“Oh, ho!” said Nibble at last. “That 
Man doesn’t hunt like the Woodsfolk. 
Glider the Blacksnake could only smell, 
not see, where I had gone. This crea- 


84 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

ture can see, and not smell. I’ve got 
to stop making tracks in this snow.” 

He looked all around. Then he saw 
that he was in another field, farther 
from the Woods than he had ever dared 
to come. Cattle were walking about in 
it, dragging their feet the way they do, 
and ploughing away the snow with 
their broad black noses to get at the 
frosty grass. So Nibble danced down 
a sprawly cow track where his soft feet 
wouldn’t leave any trace. And then he 
jumped over to a small grey stone with 
a little jDeaked snow cap on it and 
snuggled up so close that he looked like 
a part of it. And Tommy Peele 
walked right by and never saw him. 

Nibble thought this kind of hide and 
seek was pretty good fun. He was 
quite disappointed when Tommy went 
off without looking for him any longer. 
Still, the grass tasted very sweet where 
the cows had scraped off the snow for 


THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 85 

him. Pretty soon he said to himself: 
“I guess I’d better be thinking about 
getting back to the Woods again. I’ll 
be safer if I can reach the Clover Patch 

without meeting-” 

And he stopped right on that word. 
For there, following his trail, was the 
very beast he was thinking of—Silver- 
tip! And Silvertip doesn’t have to see 
any one to follow him! 

“There’s only one thing for me to 
do,” thought the Bunny. “I’ll make 
a new triangle and end up on that big 
Brown Log over there.” So he did. 
And he crouched down on it as close as 
ever he could and held his breath while 
Silvertip came closer and closer. Now 
he was by the stone! Now he was at 

the grassy spot! Now- 

Now that big Brown Log did a very 
queer thing. It began to move. It 
rocked and it heaved and then it raised 
itself right off the ground. Nibble was 


86 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

so stiff with fright that all he could do 
was dig in his toes and hold on. And 
then it switched its tail. It was a cow 
who had chosen a chilly spot to lie 
down! 

That tail sent Nibble spinning. 
Luckily he landed right side up and 
went bouncing off faster than when 
Glider was chasing him. But Silver- 
tip didn’t see him. Silvertip was too 
busy on his own account. 

For that cow wasn’t the sleepy and 
serious kind. She was young and 
active. But Silvertip, coming along 
with his nose to the ground, didn’t see 
her. 

She lowered her horns and rolled her 
eyes around, pawing footfuls of snow 
about her shoulders. t ‘Wolf!” she 
suddenly bellowed and ran at him. 

Nibble Babbit thought his end had 
come. But his feet didn’t think at all; 
they just ran. They ran while he was 


THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 87 

turning a somersault through the air 
and they ran faster when they felt the 
fluffy snow. And if they hadn’t run 
right into the big haystack at the end 
of the pasture there’s no knowing how 
far they would have taken him. But 
there was a nice little hole under it, 
waiting for him to come right in and 
hide. 

But you know Nibble. First he’s 
scared, and next he’s curious. Just as 
soon as he thought nothing was follow¬ 
ing him he stuck out his little whiskers 
to sniff about and put up his long ears 
to listen. And he heard a lot of little 
birds cheeping and gossiping up above 
him. One of them said, “There he is! 
I say, Bunny, what did you do that 
for?” 

“Do what?” demanded Nibble, cran¬ 
ing his neck so he could see who he was 
talking to. “What did I do, Mr. 
Chirp?” 


88 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“Tried to ride the red heifer,” an¬ 
swered Chirp Sparrow. 

“But I didn’t! Indeed I didn’t!” 
cried the little rabbit. “Silvertip was 
chasing me, so I jumped back from my 
trail on to a log. I was going to slip 
down behind it and run away as soon 
as he had gone past, so he wouldn’t 
smell me on the ground. That’s what 
we always do. But something hap¬ 
pened.” 

“So it seems,” replied Chirp Spar¬ 
row in an amused voice. “Don’t you 
know what it was ? ’ ’ 

“Not yet,” said Nibble, “My head’s 
still whirling.” 

“I should think it might be,” laughed 
Chirp. And the other sparrows 
seemed to think it was so funny they 
all started to giggle and talk at once, 
which made Nibble’s head whirl harder 
than ever. 

i 6 Hush! ’ ’ Chirp ordered. ‘ ‘ I want to 


THE BUNNY MEETS THE BOY 89 

tell him myself. Well, that log you 
hopped up on was a cow. She was tak¬ 
ing a nap and you woke her up. When 
she started to get up you dug your 
claws into her so she switched her 
tail—I wish you could have seen your¬ 
self. You went tumbling over and over 
like a curly thorn leaf in a west wind.” 
And he stopped to laugh again. 

“But Silvertip?” asked Nibble anx¬ 
iously. 

“Yes, Silvertip was the funniest of 
all.” Chirp shook himself so he could 
sober up to tell the rest of it. “The 
cow looked all around to see who had 
been disturbing her and there was Sil¬ 
vertip. So she must have blamed it on 
him. You ought to have seen her chase 
him. Silly thing. He just tumbled 
through the fence, any old way, and 
made off, but she thinks she’s still after 
him.” 

Sure enough, Nibble could see the red 


90 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

heifer with her swishy tail stuck 
straight up in the air, waving the tas- 
selly tip of it, leaping and mooing and 
snorting at the other end of the field. 

“I thought that was a queer log,” he 
said thoughtfully. “It made my toes 
all warm and there wasn’t any snow on 
top of it. But it had such a nice safe, 
warm-hole sort of a smell, with little 
clovery whiffs mixed in with it. Cows 
must he awfully dangerous!” 

“Dangerous!” hooted Chirp. “A 
cow dangerous! Why, the only thing 
she’s dangerous to is a clover-top. 
That’s what she eats, and that’s why 
she smells of it.” 

“But Silvertip was afraid of her.” 
Nibble was really puzzled. 

“Silvertip? Oh, well. That’s another 
story,” said Chirp. 

“Away back when the world was 
new—tell me about it.” Now Nibble 
was all pleased and excited. 


CHAPTER VII 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 

XACTLY! Way back when 
the world was new,” began 
Chirp Sparrow. And then he 
stopped to squirm himself into a bunch 
of hay right beside Nibble Rabbit, so 
the wind wouldn’t muss his feathers, 
while he was talking. And Nibble 
crept to the very mouth of the hole in 
the bottom of the haystack where he 
was hiding, and sat on his toes and was 
very happy and comfortable. 

“Away back when the world was new 
the cows and wolves began to have 
trouble.” 

“Because the wolves chose to eat 
them, like the weasel chose to eat my 

91 


92 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

great-great-grandfather ? ’ ’ interrupted 
Nibble excitedly. 

“Not in the very first-off beginning,” 
said Chirp. “You see, the weasel was 
one of those who came up from under 
the Earth-that-was-common-to-all. He 
wasn’t one of Mother Nature’s own 
things. But the wolf was. He was 
just a little too clever, but she liked 
him and trusted him—more than most. 

“Mother Nature had made a bargain 
with the plants. The beasts were to 
eat them. But she promised the plants 
that they wouldn’t die, but would 
spring up again stronger than ever. 
She would send the rain to keep them 
from getting thirsty, and they would 
put their roots into the Earth-that-was- 
common-to-all and get their food from 
it, and the winds were to keep their 
house swept clean and play with them, 
and the trees were to shade them from 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 93 

the hot sun and sing to them, so that 
they would be perfectly contented. 
And the beasts were to graze on them 
and the birds were to eat part of their 
seeds—but not all—so they were con¬ 
tented, too. 

“ Mother Nature got about half the 
earth in fine working order. Then she 
gave the rain and the wind orders and 
went down south, over the Far Horizon 
to look after the other half. 

“ Eight away the wicked little rain¬ 
drops went to playing in the brooks and 
leading them into no end of mischief. 
And the winds went up and played tag 
with each other on the mountain-tops. 
And the Sun got curious to know what 
Mother Nature was doing with the 
other half of the earth, because that 
was coming out all different, so he kept 
edging farther and farther south until 
by and by. he wasn’t paying any atten- 


94 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

tion to the north half at all. And 
things went awfully wrong in the north 
half. 

“Awfully wrong! The plants down 
in the brook bottoms cried: 6 We’re 
drowning! We’re drowning! If the 
wind and the sun don’t do their part 
we won’t be eaten.’ So they turned 
themselves into bulrushes and all kinds 
of tough, stringy things that can stand 
wet feet, but nothing in the world can 
eat them. And the plants on the 
higher lands cried: 6 We’re stran¬ 
gling! We haven’t had a drink in 
ever so long, and our backs are so stiff 
from standing still we’ll never be able 
to play again. If the rain and the 
wind don’t do their part we won’t be 
eaten!’ So they hid down in their 
roots under the Earth-that-is-common- 
to-all, most discouraged, and left only 
their skeletons standing. And the 
beasts starved. Especially the poor 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 95 

cows. But the wolves kept very fat. 
Only they weren’t telling any one how 
they managed it. 

“And Mother Nature was almost 
through down south and getting ready 
to come north again. So the Sun hur¬ 
ried back to get busy. And the rain 
poured to make up for lost time, and 
the winds rushed down from the moun¬ 
tain tops, but their fingers were all 
cold, so they made things worse than 
ever. And the beasts were all cold, 
’specially the cows.” Chirp stopped 
to stretch his wing. 

“Please go on, Mr. Chirp,” pleaded 
Nibble. He was so excited and impa¬ 
tient ! Please get to the part about the 
wolves!” 

“I will,” promised Chirp Sparrow. 
“Only these birds must settle down and 
be quiet. They get me all fluttered.” 
For every sparrow on the haystack 
was coming down close to the hole in 


96 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

the bottom where Nibble Rabbit was 
sitting. No one wanted to miss hear¬ 
ing about it. 

“Well, Mother Nature came back,” 
Chirp went on. “And, my, but wasn’t 
she angry! Just wasn’t she? She 
said to the rain: ‘I don’t believe 
you’ve rained a drop since I’ve been 
gone or you wouldn’t be carrying on at 
this rate. Do you call this a shower? 
It’s a flood—and it’s perfectly disgrace¬ 
ful.’ Then she turned to the wind. 
‘Do you think I don’t know where 
you’ve been?’ she scolded. ‘I can feel 
how cold your fingers are. Look how 
you’ve ruffled up the fur on my poor 
chilly beasts there!’ And she snapped 
at the Sun: ‘You needn’t look so 
good. Stop smiling and listen to me. 
Do you think I didn’t know where you 
were? Peeking right over my shoul¬ 
der. You nearly burned a hole in the 
back of my neck when I was finishing 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 97 

up that last armadillo. You three 
have made a pretty mess of things. 
And I did so want one world where 
there wasn’t any winter!’ She nearly 
sat down and cried over it all, she was 
so disappointed. 

“But, of course she hadn’t time. 
She had to put things back in order. 
First she coaxed the plants to begin 
growing again. Then she called the 
beasts so she could look them all over 
and see what she could do for them. 

“And the cows came crawling up, 
as slow, as slow, with their poor bones 
all sticking out—but the wolves were 
fat as butter. 

“And the cows said, ‘We’ve been 
so starvation hungry that we’ve worn 
our teeth right off.’ And so they had. 
And their teeth are still worn off, 
right to this day. 

“And the wolves whimpered: ‘We’ve 
been so starvation hungry, too!’ 


98 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“But Mother Nature looked at their 
fat sides and she said: ‘ Show me your 
teeth.’ 

“And their teeth were perfectly 
sharp and new. And they still are. 

“So Mother Nature frowned at them 
until they cringed. And they trem¬ 
bled so hard that their very claws clat¬ 
tered. For they knew that they had 
misbehaved and something serious 
would come of it. Then she asked: 
‘What have you been eating?’ 

“ ‘Just dead beasts that we found 
lying about,’ they whined. 

“Mother Nature looked at the poor 
cows, but the cows wouldn’t tell on the 
wicked wolves. Only they scratched 
the earth with their feet and sent it fly¬ 
ing over their shoulders the way they 
do when they’re angry. Then she 
said: ‘Cows will always be angry 
with you like that because they smell 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 99 

the blood on you. Oh, wolves, it is bad 
to lie, but it is terrible to kill! ’ 

“Of course the wolves knew that 
they had been found out, so they tried 
to look brave and answered: ‘We 
are too clever to starve like a stupid 
cow.’ 

“But Mother Nature shook her head 
sadly. ‘You’ll find that it’s better to 
be good and stupid than to be bad and 
clever. But bad and clever you will 
be to the end of all wolves, and the 
stupid cow will live to see the last of 
you. Cows, how shall I punish them?’ 

“Then the cows roared like a raging 
river: ‘Give us back our teeth and 
we’ll do it ourselves!” 

“ ‘I can’t do that,’ she explained, ‘be¬ 
cause nothing that has been lived can 
be done over again, but I can give you 
something newer and longer and 
sharper than the teeth of any wolf.’ 


100 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“It was horns.” 

“Is that all?” demanded Nibble Rab¬ 
bit. 

“All?” echoed Chirp Sparrow, cock¬ 
ing his head on one side. “Isn’t that 
enough?” But he was really very 
much flattered. For Nibble’s ears had 
stood straight up right through his 
story, and all the other sparrows on 
the haystack were saying, “Hush, 
hush!” so he would go on again. 

“My beak!” Chirp exclaimed. 
“I’ve told you how winter came to be, 
because the sun and the wind and the 
rain didn’t behave while Mother Na¬ 
ture left this half of the earth to go 
down and start the other half. I’ve 
told you how the good stupid cows 
starved because the plants wouldn’t be 
eaten, and how the bad clever wolves 
took to eating the cows. And how 
Mother Nature gave them horns that 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 101 

were longer and sharper than the tooth 
of any wolf to make it up to them. 
What more do you want to know?” 

“Lots of things,” insisted Nibble. 
“Why did that cow shout ‘Wolf’! at 
Silvertip?” 

“Because she’s a cow. Too good and 
stupid to know the difference! Wolf, 
fox, or dog, it’s all the same family, 
only the fox is smaller, and cleverer— 
and wickeder—and the dog is the clev¬ 
erest of all. But the cows didn’t make 
much use of their horns after they did 
get them, because they are so stupid. 

“They say Mother Nature was sor¬ 
rier over the wickedness of the wolves 
than over any of the rest because she 
trusted them more than most,” he 
went on. “You see, they were her own 
beasts, not like the weasel who came up 
from under the earth and was wicked 
from the very first.” 


102 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

“Were lots of others bad, too?” de¬ 
manded Nibble. “Bad things are al¬ 
ways interesting, you know. 

“Ob, yes. Even some of the birds.” 
Chirp said this as though it were the 
most wicked thing in the world for a 
bird to be bad. “But we weren’t. 
We’ve always been as good as good, no 
matter how much trouble we have with 
the hawks and the owls. We eat some 
seeds, but not all, and the bugs. Bugs 
come from under the earth, you know, 
and the plants hate them. But we 
didn’t have to ask for horns or claws 
to take care of ourselves—that’s be¬ 
cause we’re so clever.” And he spread 
his lively little wings, with brown edges 
to every feather, and squinted conceit¬ 
edly at them over his shoulder. 

“And the mice?” added Nibble. He 
didn’t want birds to have all the credit. 

“Mice, indeed!” chirped the spar¬ 
row, quite sharply. “Mice! Why, do 


WHY THE COW GOT HER HORNS 103 

you know what they did ? They 
sneaked down under the earth and nib¬ 
bled the very roots of the plants when 
they tried to hide under the Earth- 
that-was-common-to-all. And that was 
the meanest trick! It took Mother 
Nature half through the first spring to 
find out what they had been doing. 
Some were so ashamed of it that they 
stayed right there and got to be moles. 
But some of them pretended they just 
didn’t know any better.” 

Nibble felt a bit flustered because he 
does it, too, and so does Doctor Musk¬ 
rat. But then the quail and the sleek 
brown thrasher are just as bad, so he 
didn’t try to say anything. Fortu¬ 
nately Chirp went right on talking. 

“The wickedest creature of all,” he 
said, “is Ouphe the Bat. He’s so hor¬ 
rid and dirty and disgusting that he 
eats even his own kind. He’s a can¬ 
nibal ! Everything hates him, whether 


104 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

it wears feathers or fur or scales—even 
the stupid cow. And he hates every¬ 
thing. He comes sneaking and creep¬ 
ing just when you least expect him, 
and-” 

“Cheep!” went the watchbird of the 
flock. “Cheep!” echoed their voices 
and flutter went their lively little wings 
with brown edges to every feather. 
And Ouphe squeaked with rage be¬ 
cause he’d missed them that time. 

“You will talk about me!” he 
snarled. “You will, will you? Wait 
till you hatch and I’ll crunch your baby 
birds’ bones for you.” He clashed his 
yellow fangs horribly. 


CHAPTER VIII 


NIBBLE FOOLS OTTPHE IN HIS OWN HAY¬ 
STACK 

T HE little rabbit crouched down 
in tbe bole in the bottom of the 
haystack not three feet away 
from the wicked rat. But Ouphe 
hadn’t seen him. He was sure of it be¬ 
cause Ouphe kept squalling at the spar¬ 
rows all the nastiest things he could 
put his tongue to. And the sparrows, 
swinging from a branch of the elm tree 
that leaned above him, weren’t much 
more polite. 

“ Swapping lies with the field-mice, 
were you?” sneered Ouphe. “I’ll at¬ 
tend to them.” 

“It wasn’t lies,” shrieked Chirp 
Sparrow indignantly. “Didn’t you 

105 


106 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

come sneaking and creeping—just the 
way you always do? Thought you’d 
climb up the other side of the stack and 
surprise us when we weren’t expecting 
you, didn’t you? And isn’t that ex- 
astly what I said? Let me tell you, 
you’re one thing we always do expect. 
You’ll maybe catch us when you learn 
to fly—but not before.” 

“I’ll catch you when I clean out 
these tattle-tales of field-mice,” 
snapped Ouphe, and he gnashed his 
teeth until the froth made his whiskers 
white. 

“It w r asn’t the field-mice, Smarty! 
They never said a word. It was your 
own scaly tail that told on you.” 
Chirp spread his wings, opened his 
beak and stuck out his tongue at the 
wicked old beast. And Ouphe lashed 
his own tattling tail in an awful rage. 

“It wasn’t the field-mice, was it?” 
he snarled. “Then who were you talk- 



Tommy held Nibble up by his long ears 

« 



























NIBBLE FOOLS OUPHE 107 

ing to? I’ll slit your gossiping throat 
for you!” 

And right about then Nibble decided 
it was time to move. But he didn’t 
try to run. You see, Ouphe would 
have pounced on him. He turned 
softly around and slipped into the stack 
behind him. 

And a queer place he found himself 
in. For the whole bottom of the hay 
was tunnelled with holes. They went 
this way and that, twisting and turning 
until he lost himself entirely. And 
they were a tight fit for even a 
little rabbit to creep through. And 
dark! My, but that place was dark 
and scary—it was the darkest place 
Nibble had ever seen, darker even than 
a night when there isn’t any moon! 
And stuffy! For besides the sweet 
smell of the clover there was a horrible 
smothery weaselly one. 

Pretty soon something caught his 


108 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

foot and lie was so scared lie gave a 
little “Ow!” But it was only a piece 
of wire and lie soon got free again. 
All the same he heard a tiny scratch 
beside him which scared him more 
than ever. 

Bight then a voice, even tinier than 
the scratch, whispered, i ‘Who’s there!” 

“Nibble Babbit !” he whispered back. 

“A rabbit!” exclaimed the voice, “I 
knew I smelled one. Whatever are 
you doing here ? This is where Ouphe 
the Bat lives when he’s at home.” 

At that Nibble gave a little jump. 
But he just struck the top of the tun¬ 
nel and pricked his soft, loppy ear in 
the hay. So he went back to crawl¬ 
ing, all blind and scared in the black¬ 
ness, trying to stifle his sniffles and tast¬ 
ing the salt tears that rolled down his 
nose. And all around him he seemed 
to see the long yellow teeth and the 


NIBBLE FOOLS OUPHE 109 

frothy whiskers of Ouphe, parted in a 
wicked grin. 

Suddenly he struck something small 
and soft. And the tiny voice whis¬ 
pered: “Take my tail in your mouth 
and follow me. But don’t bite too 
hard.” 

Nibble Rabbit opened his mouth and 
caught hold of a slim thing, like a little 
round stalk of grass, that was tickling 
his eyebrows. And he knew it was a 
field-mouse’s tail. It twitched as her 
little feet started running through the 
inky black tunnels Ouphe the Rat had 
made for himself. And the way she 
turned and twisted made Nibble afraid 
she didn’t know for sure just where 
she was going. It was no wonder that 
he had got lost among them! 

But he scrambled along behind her 
as fast as he could. And at last they 
made a sharp turn and Nibble could 


110 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

see the snow outside glistening in the 
sun. My, how nice it seemed when he 
reached it, though it made his eyes 
blink. And when he tried to thank the 
field-mouse she had disappeared. 

He crept around the edge of the hay¬ 
stack, looking for where his tracks led 
into it, so he could follow them back to 
the Woods again. At the second cor¬ 
ner he caught sight of the sparrows, 
still swinging in the elm tree, just as 
he had left them before he hid in 
Ouphe’s own hole. Of course he waited 
to hear whether Ouphe were still on 
that side of the stack. Nibble didn’t 
want to be chased by him. 

And right then Chirp sang out, 
4 ‘It was a rabbit we were talking to. 
He’s been sitting there all the while in 
that hole below you.” 

Nibble simply couldn’t believe his 
ears. It sounded as though Chirp 
wanted Ouphe to get him. But Chirp 


NIBBLE FOOLS OUPHE 111 

knew what he was doing. For he 
flashed “Wait!” with two white feath¬ 
ers in his tail. Chirp knows a thing or 
two, if he is conceited, and he signalled 
so plainly any rabbit would know what 
he meant by it. But a rat wouldn’t. 

You ought to have seen the change 
that came over t)uphe. He quickly 
cleaned his whiskers and began to talk 
as though he had honey in his throat. 
“What? A rabbit? Why, Mr. Spar¬ 
row, how could you keep me here play¬ 
ing jokes when I had a visitor? That 
was very unkind of you. I must invite 
him in and make him at home.” 

He said it so Nibble wouldn’t be 
afraid of him and begin to run. Be¬ 
cause then he’d have a fine hunt 
through all those twisty black tunnels 
to find him. But Nibble knew mighty 
well that he was only pretending. 
When he snarled out that he’d “slit 
Chirp’s throat” and “crunch the bones 


112 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

of his baby birds” Ouphe had meant 
every wicked word of it. 

“Ha, ha!” laughed Chirp. “You’re 
so funny, Mr. Ouphe, we don’t quite 
know how to take you. That rabbit 
just stepped inside when he heard you 
invite him. I saw his tail.” 

“Wait for me, Mr. Rabbit,” said 
Ouphe in his sticky, sweet voice, “I’d 
like to eat with you. And we’ll invite 
my dear little friends the field-mice 
too.” He said that because he knew 
perfectly well Nibble had heard him 
call them “tattle-tales.” And he 
thumped down right into Nibble’s rab¬ 
bity tracks where they went into the 
stack. 

“All safe. Come ahead!” flashed 
Chirp. And he actually winked those 
tail-feathers. So Nibble bounced out 
and made some more tracks in the nice 
crunchy snow. But they went away 
from where Ouphe was hunting crossly 


NIBBLE FOOLS OUPHE 113 

through his black tunnels under the 
hay. 

“Ka-runch-it, ka-runch-it!” sang his 
furry feet in the crispy snow, running 
away from Ouphe the Eat and his hay¬ 
stack. 6 ‘ Ka-flick-it, ka-flick-it! ’ ’ twid¬ 
dled his pufly tail as he passed under 
the elm branch where the sparrows 
were chuckling to themselves. That 
was his 46 Thank you.” 

“I’d better not talk,” thought Nib¬ 
ble, “for fear Ouphe might hear me. 
All the same I call Chirp Sparrow 
pretty smart. He waited until he saw 
I’d come safely through Ouphe’s scary 
dark tunnels under the hay and then he 
sent Ouphe in there to look for me 
while I skip off. Only I wish I’d 
thanked that field-mouse who showed 
me the way out of Ouphe’s holes. I’ll 
do something for her some day.” And 
he did. You wait and see. 


CHAPTER IX 


NIBBLE DIGS INTO TROUBLE—AND SLirS 
OUT 

S UDDENLY Nibble put up bis ears 
and put down bis nose in great 
surprise. Then be bopped up on 
to tbe grey stone where be bad bidden 
from Tommy Peele, and looked care¬ 
fully about bim. For be could see 
Tommy Peele’s footsteps following bis 
own trail, just ahead of bim, and Tom¬ 
my Peele’s dark blue sweater and red 
mittens looking more than ever like 
Redwing the Blackbird, not so very far 
away. He couldn’t see Tommy’s tall 
rubber boots because they were bidden 
behind the cornstalk tent down in tbe 
Broad Field. 

“Now I wonder what he’s doing 

114 


NIBBLE DIGS INTO TROUBLE 115 

there ?” Nibble asked himself. He 
never for a minute thought of being 
afraid. He didn’t even know that 
what Tommy was doing had anything 
to do with him. 

Well, when Nibble Babbit isn’t 
afraid he’s always curious. He made 
a triangle or two of his tracks because 
he meant to be awfully careful about 
this “man,” as he called Tommy, and 
crept up behind him. 

And what do you think Tommy was 
doing? He was making a figure-four 
trap. He took a soap box and bal¬ 
anced it on top of three little sticks. 
One was a bait stick. He had speared 
it through a fine fat carrot. And when 
he got them all fitted together he took 
a handful of wheat out of his pocket 
and spread it under the box. Any one 
could eat the wheat, but the box would 
come down “blam!” on the first fellow 
who touched that carrot. Only it 


116 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

wouldn’t hurt him. He’d just be 
caught in there under the soap box un¬ 
til Tommy came and took him out. 
That is unless he could dig under the 
edge of it. 

But that isn’t what happened to Nib¬ 
ble. Oh, no! 

For before he ever reached it there 
were three little mice in it. They 
were the very same mice Nibble had 
invited to that very same cornstalk 
tent on the night of his Storm Party. 
The lady mouse hopped up on that bait 
stick and- 

“Blam!” Down came the soap box. 
But of course that didn’t bother the 
mice at all. They felt safer in the 
dark and it was warm and comfortable 
after the box shut the wind out. 

Nibble came leaping up. “Are you 
hurt?” he called. 

“No!” answered the mice all at once. 
“It’s perfectly lovely in here.” And 


NIBBLE DIGS INTO TROUBLE 117 

the lady mouse added, u WeVe found 
the loveliest root I ever set tooth to. 
I think it must be some of that Water 
Chinquapin Doctor Muskrat gave you. 
Do come and help us eat it.” 

So Nibble Kabbit’s busy little feet 
found a crack in the crust and made 
the snow fly. “Scritch-scratch!” went 
his claws. 

“ Hurry up!” called his mouse 
friends who were inside. “We ? ve 
eaten up half of this lovely root al¬ 
ready.” They were perfectly willing 
to give him his share—if he could only 
get in with them to eat it. And he 
was doing his very best. 

“Crunch, crunch. Nibble, nibble, 
nibble,” went their busy teeth. They 
didn’t mean to be selfish, but a mouse 
is such a hungry little thing it just 
can’t wait for any one. 

Now Tommy Peele had heard the 
“blam!” when his trap was sprung. 


118 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

So he came hurrying back as fast as 
ever he could in his tall rubber boots. 
He was making all manner of noise, 
but nobody heard him. For Nibble al¬ 
ready had his head under the trap. 
His sprawly legs were spread out to 
get a good grip on the snow, and even 
his puffy tail seemed trying to help 
him as he squirmed into it. And 
didn’t Tommy Peele laugh when he 
saw that! Who ever heard of any¬ 
thing so foolish as digging into a trap. 

“Here,” said the Lady Mouse, re¬ 
membering how she had eaten Nibble’s 
corn in the little cornstalk tent; “you’ll 
find the heart is the sweetest.” And 
soon the juice was dripping from Nib¬ 
ble’s busy little jaws. 

“It isn’t water chinquapin,” he 
found time to say, “but it’s quite as 
good. And this place seems nice and 
safe. I don’t think even Silvertip the 
Fox could catch us.” 


NIBBLE DIGS INTO TROUBLE 119 

“Hush!” said the mouse. “I think 
I hear that awful beast every time you 
speak of him.” 

But Nibble was too busy making up 
for lost time even to listen. 

Up crept Tommy Peele with his eyes 
on the place where Nibble crawled in. 
At last he got his hand over it. Then 
he hit the box on the other side. 

Then didn’t those foolish little beasts 
who were feasting on his carrot sit 
up and listen? And didn’t they start 
to run? But there wasn’t any place to 
run to! For Nibble finally found his 
hole—with Tommy Peele’s red mitten 
in it. And his poor little heart began 
to beat like mad. “Mice,” he whis¬ 
pered, “it’s that Man!” 

So they huddled up into a miserable 
little heap in the very middle of that 
soap box and waited. And Tommy 
waited, too. 

But they kept so very still he said 


120 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

to himself, “I wonder if that bunny’s 
got out on the other side.” So he 
looked all around, and of course he 
saw there were no fresh tracks in the 
snow. Then he pulled off one of his 
mittens and reached in to feel. 

And his hand found Nibble’s soft, 
warm fur. And his fingers hunted for 
Nibble’s floppy ears. But they just 
happened to touch the nose of that 
Lady Mouse. 

6 6 Ow, ow, ow-w-w! Leggo! ’ ’ shouted 
Tommy. And trap and sticks and rab¬ 
bit and mice went whirling. And 
Tommy danced up and down in his tall 
rubber boots. 

In the whole world you could not 
have found a more frightened bunny 
than Nibble when Tommy Peele held 
him up by his long ears and started 
toward the barn. I wish I could tell 
you right now what happened to him 


NIBBLE DIGS INTO TROUBLE 121 

then, but, bless me, so many things hap¬ 
pened that this book simply will not 
hold them. It is all written down, 
though, and if you want to know how 
he made friends with the Red Cow and 
how he learned about Tad Coon and 
how he learned about many other 
things you can read about every bit of 
it in the other books about Nibble and 
his friends. ’Cause that Lady Mouse 
had bitten him. 

But Nibble didn’t know that. He 
dashed across the snow, his tufty tail 
flicking at every jump, “ Catch me if 
you can!” And of course Tommy 
couldn’t. Not just then. 

But later- Well, that’s another 

story—and a good one, too. The Red 
Cow is in it, and Ouphe the Rat, and 
Chirp, and Watch the Dog, and Tad 
Coon, and Doctor Muskrat, of course, 
and—and Oh, you’ll just have to 




122 MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE 

wait till that story has a cover of its 
own, I guess. ’Cause this one’s too 
full to squeeze it in. 


THE END 
























































































